And I couldn't be more excited. We started off nicely, I thought. I didn't get to stick with tradition and live post the first game of the season so I apologize for that. I had prior commitments. This is going to be a very, very fun team to watch though.
Genord remains the player with the most power, IMO, on this team. This dude can just seriously crush a homerun. Our BULLpen is going to be a force to recon with. Last year I fell in love with Phoenix Sanders and his slider. He was our starting pitcher on Friday and figured that made since since he was our best pitcher (until Brandon Lawson caught fire!) but after talking to some people...Sanders wasn't going to be a Friday pitcher for us if everyone was healthy and not dealing with TJ surgery. He wouldn't have even been a Saturday pitcher. This dude was going to be a freaking SUNDAY pitcher! Unreal. That kind of talent coming out on a Sunday...that alone is going to win you games.
Now this year we get Shane McClanahan, Ryan Valdes AND Peter Strzelecki back. I believe all three had TJ surgery before the start of last season. I think we also had a fourth out before the season as well but I'm not entirely sure.
McClanahan...what can I say? The dude is an absolute MONSTER! What a career start for the kid! He's going to be a high draft pick, no question about it. We are incredibly lucky to have him. He can sit around 92-93 on his fast ball all day and I've even heard about him ping a 97. A 97! Stud.
Oh yeah AND we add in stud high school pitcher DJ Roberts from this last signing class. I'm assuming he could get some play this year as well...even as deep as our BULLpen is.
Speaking of a deep BULLpen...that's not the only thing that's deep. We are not going to have to worry about rotating in a liability this year. We have a lot of players who can ball out. Usually we go with the outfield combination of Chatfield, Zech and Montgomery. However, we have a nice player in Stunkel who can literally play every position in the outfield if we need him to. He covered some serious ground in game one and made an incredible diving catch.
I did notice some position changes to start the season though. I think Kingston noticed Coco's difficulty with SS and swapped him with Merrell. Coco just had WAAAYYY too many errors last year, even as a true freshman. I like the move. I also think that the catcher experiment may be done and I think that Dietrich is going to be our new catcher which would then allow Genord to take 1B full time. Villar is perfectly fine at 3B and Merrell is just a stud that you can place at either SS or 2B and be totally fine. So that explains the Coco move. I'm going to miss Merrell after this year. But Kingston is bringing in some straight heat with this talent.
Our bats can get hot too. We have some hitters on this team, as shown by this weekend when we responded with a NINE run inning in the 8th! We can go through some patches but when we are on...we're on and we can strike at any moment. I really like that.
Today we play FSU at 4 on their home turf so it should be interesting to see how things go with a year of experience under our phenomenal recruiting class and our entire pitching staff healthy.
Genord remains the player with the most power, IMO, on this team. This dude can just seriously crush a homerun. Our BULLpen is going to be a force to recon with. Last year I fell in love with Phoenix Sanders and his slider. He was our starting pitcher on Friday and figured that made since since he was our best pitcher (until Brandon Lawson caught fire!) but after talking to some people...Sanders wasn't going to be a Friday pitcher for us if everyone was healthy and not dealing with TJ surgery. He wouldn't have even been a Saturday pitcher. This dude was going to be a freaking SUNDAY pitcher! Unreal. That kind of talent coming out on a Sunday...that alone is going to win you games.
Now this year we get Shane McClanahan, Ryan Valdes AND Peter Strzelecki back. I believe all three had TJ surgery before the start of last season. I think we also had a fourth out before the season as well but I'm not entirely sure.
McClanahan...what can I say? The dude is an absolute MONSTER! What a career start for the kid! He's going to be a high draft pick, no question about it. We are incredibly lucky to have him. He can sit around 92-93 on his fast ball all day and I've even heard about him ping a 97. A 97! Stud.
Oh yeah AND we add in stud high school pitcher DJ Roberts from this last signing class. I'm assuming he could get some play this year as well...even as deep as our BULLpen is.
Speaking of a deep BULLpen...that's not the only thing that's deep. We are not going to have to worry about rotating in a liability this year. We have a lot of players who can ball out. Usually we go with the outfield combination of Chatfield, Zech and Montgomery. However, we have a nice player in Stunkel who can literally play every position in the outfield if we need him to. He covered some serious ground in game one and made an incredible diving catch.
I did notice some position changes to start the season though. I think Kingston noticed Coco's difficulty with SS and swapped him with Merrell. Coco just had WAAAYYY too many errors last year, even as a true freshman. I like the move. I also think that the catcher experiment may be done and I think that Dietrich is going to be our new catcher which would then allow Genord to take 1B full time. Villar is perfectly fine at 3B and Merrell is just a stud that you can place at either SS or 2B and be totally fine. So that explains the Coco move. I'm going to miss Merrell after this year. But Kingston is bringing in some straight heat with this talent.
Our bats can get hot too. We have some hitters on this team, as shown by this weekend when we responded with a NINE run inning in the 8th! We can go through some patches but when we are on...we're on and we can strike at any moment. I really like that.
Today we play FSU at 4 on their home turf so it should be interesting to see how things go with a year of experience under our phenomenal recruiting class and our entire pitching staff healthy.
